This is the third part of my Worldwide Developer Conference 2016 event overview. In this part I will get into iOS 10, one of the four operating systems by Apple. The operating system running on Apple iPods, iPads and iPhones (and Apple CarPlay). iOS 10 operating system features were presented at the Worldwide Developer Conference 2016 on June 13th.
Lock Screen Refresh
With this version of iOS activates the lock screen whenever the device is picked up: “Raise to Wake” on devices with Touch ID. So simply just lift the device and it is ready to go, unlock it or open the device.
A feature that was removed with this is “Slide to Unlock”. It appeared that most people used the Touch ID to unlock the phone anyway so now when you pick up your device it will say “Press Home to Unlock” or if already unlocked “Press Home to Open”
Sliding will in fact still do something, it will bring up your Widgets panel when swiping to the right. Swiping left will bring up the camera.
Siri
To access Siri from your apps Apple provided the SiriKit SDK in iOS 10. Right now the SDK is limited to Booking Rides, Search Photo Apps, Send Messages, Calling, Payments and Workouts. The reason for this limitation is the risk of privacy breaches. Apple likes to control what is accessed through Siri and user information should not be able to be accessed through Siri.
Removing Stock Apps
Now you can remove Stock Apps from your device. This wasn’t possible earlier. Stock Apps are the preinstalled Apps from Apple such as: Calendar, Compass, Contacts etc. etc..
Messages
Messages got a big overhaul and took a huge part of the Keynote. Many new features arrived at the Messages App. From animated backgrounds, more visual link where the message shows you a preview of the content like pictures, videos to written messages using ink. Emoji’s are the next big thing in Messages. Emoji’s will sometimes show bigger sized, when there are more size will change back to normal. Writing a new message allows you to highlight the possible candidates to be replaced by emoji’s and easily swap out the words by icons. More message customizing can be done with the use of new Stickers.
Photos
As we have seen with photo services from other providers Apple is adding more machine learning to their systems. It will now recognize up to seven facial expressions and thousands of categories recognizing subjects such as dogs, cats, flowers, whatever … Apple also added Memories. With Memories pictures are bundled from similar events. Your vacation in Spain for instance, or the event in a sports arena last weekend. Interesting statement again related to privacy is that Apple stated not able to ‘see’ the images.
Apps Update
Controlling your home is added with the new Home app. Switch on or off your lights or other HomeKit compatible devices. Apple Music has been updated, many UI updates and lyrics are added. Apple News got an update, breaking news notifications and the option to have subscription based information.
Apple Pay web payments can now be done through Safari with participating websites. A “Pay with Apple Pay” button will be available where you will be able to pay by authentication through the Touch ID.
And what else is there?
Besides the features mentioned above there are numerous other updates. Not so big, smaller updates but overall a lot. For developers one important thing is probably that a large part of the kernel is now available unencrypted. Not sure this was intended or published by accident.